Meeting With Jill Hogan

A meeting has been set up with Jill Hogan who is in charge of branding for Ravensbourne college. We basically wanted to ask what we could and could not do with the Ravensbourne logo and what we should and should not be doing with it.

The main things to take from what she said was:

Incorperate the Ravensbourne logo but we are not to change it in any way

The logo can be made into black and white, but must keep the colours if we were to make the t shirt or design in different colours. we can use black on white or white on black...

We could use the chevron design and shapes to come up with an idea, and we would need to keep the Font for the logo the same, as with any writing that goes on the t-shirt.

She will need to check any designs before we get them printed and sold.

She said that there is a possibility for the college to buy the design or t-shirts for there up coming or big events they may put on in the near future, so it could be a good way to make money in the long run.
That or we could get commisioned to try and create more t-shirt designs for the different events....

Merchandising

I think we have now decided to only do merchandising for the company and the college as a way of getting money and promoting the service. I dont think we will now be doing models and selling merchandising for our films as this will over complicate the site and the films will change every year.

Merchandising_Online

Looking into Merchandising and how much its going for online.

These impressive figurines can go for anything up to $200.00 or more. A bit more than we would obviously make with our less than well known animated films we a re going to make.

The Opposition

Carlos gave me the job of Looking to find out our opposition to which who are also trying to start up a very similar business....

Below is what they intend to do....

The are called:

The Student Web Services.....

People involved:

Craig Gardner
David Christmas
George Alton

Summary of there enterprise:
The business is to be based around providing online services to students. The prime focus would be those who need temporary hosting and design services during their time at University/College. This could be for a range of things from actual term-time projects (something like Rave Live) through to online portfolio hosting.

The primary focus at the beginning is students who need temporary online services at some point. To that end our major USP would be that we would not attempt to lock the customer down into lengthy contracts but simply provide the service on a month by month basis.

To supplement this we would look firstly into providing basic template solutions that require the minimal amount of effort from the client in order for them to have a functional website, this would mostly be used for basic portfolio presentation during the job application process. Taking this further we could offer more complex and involved hosting/design/technical support services to student start-ups and larger projects.

• Would develop an “after University” support section for graduated students who wish to keep their services. This would be a major development once the original start-up was functioning and profitable.

• Mission statement: “we see ourselves providing personal, affordable and no ties web services to the student community. These can be tailored as little or as much as the clients require to help them achieve the best in their endeavours”

Measurable aim(s) of there enterprise

Highly attractive and affordable the natural flow of the student communications channels should do a lot for our promotion.

Promote e and e projects on the webiste

Aiming for 2 – 5 paying customers by the end of the project, spread over various services and at different levels of involvement (short term customers vs long term customers etc)

A starting point would be a website, moving through small-scale social media promotions (a Facebook group etc). The major driving force would be contacting people and making use of already established contacts to bring business and inherrently spread the word through their day-to-day conversations

Action Plan
Weeks 1&2 – Market research, infrastructure research
Weeks 3&4 – Set up own website and hosting, (obtaining/investing in static IP etc) begin to refine portfolio design templates
Weeks 3 – 6 – Promote via word of mouth/online presence and begin arranging client meetings and working to provide the first stages of solutions
Weeks 6+ – Continue with progress, re-asses and re-evaluate enterprise direction and adjust project goals/progress plans accordingly

Budget
havent worked out thier budget yet.

Exit Strategy/ Risk management
Two weeks of market research and technical research will give us a better idea of what we would stand to lose. However as is usually the case with Web infrastructure, the entire thing can be built on older systems and then migrated over to newer systems once investment and uptake have reached appropriate levels. This should minimize the lost investment if the project were to fail during the first 6 weeks.

After this point, the focus should be on continuing student uptake (helped by the fact that every year there are more students entering education) and retaining graduates (this part of the enterprise can be worked on at around a 6month point of the first year, once the original project is seen to be effective).

Merchandising Research

Merchandising.co.uk

Merchandising

Merchandising describes the way that companies get their products or services promoted. There are various ways of doing this and they all have the same aim - to get a company and/or its brand products in poll position to catch the eye of a potential customer.

Merchandising isn't just about where a product goes in a shop to catch the eye of a customer. There are also a lot of issues behind this kind of 'Point of Sale' merchandising that can affect the outcome. So, a company's marketing department also has to research issues such as packaging, promotions, tie-ins and pricing.

The most obvious merchandising route in retail terms is the Point of Sale route. So, for example, you could go into a supermarket and see a display set up by the entrance to sell videos from a specific company on a 3 for £10 offer. This will immediately catch your eye.

Another option here is selective merchandising where smaller shops will agree to sell a specific brand of a certain product (i.e. like ice creams and lollies) but not others. In return they will be given promotional tools, freezers and other incentives. Or a restaurant chain may be incentivised to sell one big brand of cola but not the other.

Another route that can be taken here is cross-selling merchandising. So, for example, the producers of a kid's TV show may do deals with clothes manufacturers and toy makers to have images from the show put to market on clothes and toys. This helps them build brand image and maximise profits.

Nowadays, sports merchandising is also big business. The companies, for example, that sponsor premiership football team get all kinds of advertising thrown in to the mix. Their company name or brand will appear on the TV regularly and fans will buy and wear the team shirts with their name on the front.

Print Advertising

Print advertising is the term used to describe adverts or advertising campaigns that appear in print media. So, adverts here can appear in:

• Newspapers - i.e. in local, national and international papers.
  
  
• Magazines - i.e. in local, national, international, niche and general magazines.
  
  
• Directories - i.e. in telephone directories such as Yellow Pages.
  
  
• Poster sites - i.e. on posters that are placed in specific billboard sites or in bus shelters, on public transport or at train stations.
  
  
• Catalogues - i.e. in store catalogues and free catalogues that are posted to customers as direct mail, dropped through letterboxes and/or inserted into newspapers and magazines.
  
  
• Leaflets, flyers and mailers - i.e. inserted into newspapers and magazines, left for customers to pick up in shops, sent by post as direct mail or hand delivered to your home.
  

Print advertising can take many forms. Some adverts will be primarily text based, some will mix text and images and some will have an image-based focus. They can be used to advertise products and services and may run as an individual advert or as part of a bigger advertising campaign.

As with any advertising it is important to know who your target audience is and what kind of advertising they are likely to respond to. So, for example, if you are selling computer components then placing an advertisement in a computer magazine may do well for you. But, placing an advert in a knitting magazine may not bring in such good results!

Online Advertising

Online adverts are a form of advertising that appears on the Internet - i.e. they appear online! These adverts are a specialist form of advertising and can serve both static and interactive uses. So, for example, a static advert simply works like a standard advert in that it gives/show a message and has a call to action. An interactive online advert gives/shows the message but the viewer can use the advert itself (usually by clicking on it) to move to the next stage.

Since the early days of online advertising this sector has moved on and there are now multiple ways that an individual or business can advertise over the Internet either via email or via web pages. The most popular ways of doing this include:

• Banner adverts - a banner advert will show you some information and will lead you to a website when you click on it. These adverts can be static or animated/use video and can run across the page or appear horizontally to the side (where they are known as skyscrapers).
  
  
• Pop ups - these adverts open up in front of the web page that is being looked at.
  
  
• Pop unders - pop unders send the advert behind the web page that is being looked at.
  
  
• In text advertising - here a word/words in a piece of text will be highlighted and underlined. When the reader moves the mouse over the word(s) then an advert will appear on the screen.
  
  
• Rich media adverts - these adverts may use hi-tech techniques to grab attention (such as animation, sound and video).
  
  
• Floating adverts - these adverts can be set up to float over content or to move across the screen.
  
  
• Trick advert - these adverts are designed to look like error messages.
  
  
• Interstitial adverts - these adverts will appear as you go through the pages of web site.
  

Given the technology in use with online advertising many people that want to use this form of advertising will use a independent specialist agency to help create and place their adverts. In some cases sites that sell these kinds of advertising on their own web sites will help with the design and creation of adverts for advertisers.

In general terms there are various ways that advertisers pay to have adverts appear on the Internet. They may, for example, pay on a Cost Per Impression (CPM) basis where they pay per 1000 impressions. Or, they may pay on a Pay Per Click (PPC) basis where they pay for every user that clicks on an advert that leads to their website. And, they may pay on a Cost Per Action (CPA) basis where they only pay if a visitor uses the advert to access their site and then buys or does something specific.

FreeLancing e and e day

The Shape of technology will change in 5-10 years.

When freelancing, you tend to provide your own tools.

Film unit specialists is different from self employment.
You do not get
sick pay
holiday
maternity

You have to provide a quote for the work
Invoice the people you work for
Employ others to do the work
When you do something wrong its at your own expense
You need public liability insurance.

You have to think about Tax how much to pay. Keep 1/3 of your salray aside

How much are you going to charge people for what you do for them?


When you are employed
Your have the right to be
Paid
contract
payslip
Sick and holiday pay
unpaid leave
Engage in union activitys
work no more than 48 hours per week
Safe environment


I need to have a look into agencies to see what they can do for me and my business....

The Name

The name has now changed to "The Third Nexus" for our website. Reasons being that "The Third Network" has already been taken from someone else. Nexus is the same meaning as Network, being connection or network. If we didnt change it in the long run it could lead to copyright and legal issues, so a quick change was agreed upon. It means that we can still use some of the logo designs and everything doesnt have to be changed......

Feedback from our formative submission......

We have been told to carry out more research into out target market, find out what they want out of our enterprise. It was also said that our idea would not make a lot of money out of it, charging for this service, students would not have the money to invest in something like this, and therefore we should come up with a idea for how to raise the money to create something like this.
He also said that we are not the only ones trying to set his up for the e and e project, there are others, so i will try and look into what they intend to offer the students so we can try and out-do them and make our work.....

What the college has at the moment:

What our college has at current:

The College Website and Intranet, Also Known As Moodle…..

The website allows to search the Library books and Source material that at currently available to borrow from the library.

Moodle, Intranet

The moodle intranet also allows students to download their timetables, and lecture notes and Briefs. Messages can be sent through the site allowing for communication.

The Student finder on Moodle allows for students and staff to be searched by course, level or by name, which will then give contact details of email addresses so students and staff can get in touch with each other.

Ravensbourne College has its own Webmail services, giving every student their own email address so important lecturers can hand out information easily.

There are forums where students can get involved and start conversations about issues they are having in the college, events that are going on and uploading work to forums to discuss.

There are also community forums, which are currently being used to place advertising for equipment people are trying to sell, and people just starting conversations casually.

Work placements opportunities have their own section and are updated by the employability team every day. So long as you are signed up to the webpage, everything can be emailed directly to you. This helps the students to know exactly what job opportunities and placements there are outside of the college.

We believe it could be helpful for a similar service, which would show what work is needed to be done within college too.

Careers and guidance on CVs, Freelancing and setting up your own business are all available for students to look at.

There is an Events page for outside the university and events within the college, but are they always updated? There isn’t anything else on the page at this time.

There are a few weaknesses within our idea for this portfolio website. One is of the costing for the project. There are already portfolios out there, which are available for free.

We have thought of a few ways to change the project slightly in order to make it work.

The Jobs pages are updated regularly, know one really looks much into them. It was then made easier that all jobs will be emailed to students if they sign up for them all to be emailed to them. is there a way of attracting the students for them to look at them.

The Target Market......

Our audience is the students of Ravensbourne.

Our target market should be easy to reach, they will all be around us when we are at college. Through word of mouth, email, facebook, college forums, we can ask the questions needed for our market research.

Promotion strategy consists of us selling the t-shirts by the main entrance to the college, and walking round wearing the t-shirts, asking if they would like to purchase one. Seen as the logo is for ravensbourne, we didn’t think trying to sell them out of college that anyone would buy one with the colleges logo on, so we stuck to ravensbourne college students only.

I tried to network with Lizzie Jackson, to try and findout what was going on in the college, as well as Jill Hogan, to try and find out what we could use for the branding on the t-shirts.

Quote From Lizzie Backing our Project

"Ravensbourne is about collaboration, therefore Ravensbourne management has

welcomed initiatives from students - and requests - to start a social media network which

has a focus within the Ravensbourne community. There is also a wish to provide a portfolio

'show and tell' area which is viewable both within and outside Ravensbourne.”